It will shortly be that that time of year again where practices are able to submit their work for consideration of regional awards and then hopefully for a national prize as well.

The timetable for 2020 can be found at the bottom of this page (entries open on December 12, 2019).

As one of the first events that I was invited to on behalf of the NDSA this year was the RIBA East Midlands regional awards which was held in early May at Nottingham Trent University. As someone who has never been to an awards ceremony such as this before (or any, frankly), it was certainly an interesting insight in how the existing generation of older architects in the region conduct themselves and spend an evening networking with a group of people that first glance, they already know.

Fortunately, the person in charge of the seating arrangement placed me next to someone of a similar age (I think we were two of maybe 10 people under 40) but who had significant insight into the process and was able to bring me up to speed about how things worked.

Overall, the evening went smoothly and was certainly an opportunity for the industry to celebrate quality architecture in the area. Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire were particularly well represented with four of the eight shortlisted coming from our counties.

However I think there is a missed opportunity by not engaging with students more in these matters – organising it through the final submission period doesn’t help – it could assist in demonstrating something that they could either aspire to or react to but would certainly provide an example of how the RIBA promotes excellence in the region to those who it wants to engage with on a professional level, perhaps an exhibition of the shortlisted entries that toured the counties / universities would be good.

In future, I would recommend the judging criteria summary found at the bottom of this web page[convert to hyper link 3] is included at the beginning of the catalogue book as the event is pushed as being open to all architects in the area not just those who have submitted - so the assumption that everyone simply knows what’s happening (including those there for the first time).

Whilst one could argue that not everyone needs to know this unless they have or want to enter a project, it would also be an opportunity for the RIBA to become a little less opaque.

Once again, the committee would like to offer our congratulations to all those shortlisted and the winners for the East Midlands Awards 2019 especially those within Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire which had a particularly strong representation this year; and good luck to those who enter to consideration in 2020.

RIBA Awards 2020 (UK) entries open 12 December 2019 to 13 February 2020

RIBA Awards (UK) visits February to April 2020

RIBA Regional Awards announced May 2020

RIBA National Awards announced June 2020

RIBA House of the Year longlist announced June 2020

RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist announced July 2020

Stephen Lawrence Prize, Neave Brown Award for Housing and Client of the Year shortlists announced August 2020

Royal Gold Medal and RIBA Fellowships announced September 2020

RIBA Stirling Prize ceremony October 2020

International Awards for Excellence visits International Awards for Excellence announced

International Emerging Architect Prize announced International Prize visits International Prize shortlist announced International Prize announced March to April 2020

May 2020 June 2020 July 2020

September 2020

November 2020

Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire 2019 award winners:

Stackyard [image] By: James Boon Architects Client: Private

RIBA East Midlands Award 2019

Heart for Hathersage [image] By: Architect Studio Gedye Client: Hathersage Parish Council

RIBA East Midlands Award 2019

RIBA East Midlands Client of the Year 2019

RIBA East Midlands Project Architect of the Year 2019

Dancing Flowers of Doe Lea [image] By: Tonkin Liu Client: Beam

RIBA East Midlands Award 2019 RIBA East Midlands Small Project Award 2019 Teaching and Learning Building [image] By: Make Architects Client: The University of Nottingham

RIBA East Midlands Award 2019

RIBA East Midlands Sustainability Award 2019

Information on the awards can be found here: [1] https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards

Information on the process and the awards available to entrants can be found here: [2] https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/riba-awards-timetable

Information on entry criteria can be found here: [3] https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/awards-entry-guidelines